Reemsaqer TP’s Weblog

Today is my second day in the school where I enjoyed attending a very interactive English lesson in grade one given by Miss Hind and decided to write the observation task one based on this lesson.  I was delighted to see her using the smart board to introduce the new vocabulary for the students as well as emphasizing the main words by changing the colors and drawing.  I believe that the clapping sound effect used in the classroom via the smart board to praise the bright students and encourage the others was an effective way.   I was amazed to see Miss Hind suing a web-based activity that let students drag objects in a matching activity which made the learning very animated and motivated the student to pay more attention.  In addition, I love the immediate feedback from the activity.  What made me more happy was that the teacher used the privilege strategy as a reward for the students who finish the worksheet earlier.  I was amazed to see a variety of students’ self-made work such as a PowerPoint game and a science-related activities’ photos.  I was amazed when the teacher showed me other smart board features in the end of the lesson such as a timer to time students’ work and a spot light function which hides some information in the board and makes the students curious to know the forward point when the spot light becomes larger.  Also, I noticed that she could  easily move to a new page without using the eraser which I think saved time.  This made me realize how the board is an interactive and a must tool in every classroom.  I was disappointed when I had been told that there are not adequate smartboards for a few classes in the school and that some teachers don’t look after its materials of pens and erasers.

Using fantastic websites for teaching the lesson

On the other hand, I attended another English lesson where I think the teacher lack the control of the class and better to use flashcards to present the new vocabulary instead of just writing them on the board whereas she was effective in prasing the bright students by giving them a card of the student of the week for 2 students.  Furthermore, I was impressed when I saw her translating some difficult words in Arabic and.   :-@ It annoyed me seeing her frightening the students and shouting at them when they misbehaved because In my opinion, the teacher should not use these traditional techniques in her classrooms which leads the student to study for an external reason.      

A special Need case

In the English lesson I attended, I discovered that there was a special need student, who had difficulty paying attention and slow learning pace which made a caregiver, attending the class, to keep up with this child to meet other students’ work.  I was delighted when the teacher let him drag objects in the smart board which is a helpful way to improve the learning process of this child.  Surprisingly, his younger sister is in the same class yet an intelligent student in the class according to Miss Hind.

Later on, I attended three classes of Math and Arabic, which fascinated me as the teacher was using the smart board effectively.  However, I was disappointed because the teachers had difficulties in controlling students’ behavior.  Another challenging element of the lessons is that I noticed that the students were hyperactive and the Religion teacher was not able to settle them down which means that the time was wasted in just shouting out at the students.  She also didn’t use any technology in her lesson which I feel made the students bored.

After this day, I really paid attention to the importance of using smart board and learnt some interesting features I might use in the future.